I showed you one of the photos I took of Elaine and Warrior over the weekend, in the previous post about the photo session with her and Robyn, but I want to tell more of the story, so here are more of the photos… and more of the story.

I know Elaine also spoke about the experience on her blog… but I want to expand on that post too!

Elaine rode at Cheryl’s riding school when she was younger, and has been dying to get photos of her riding and sitting on a horse.  When we finally organised this shoot, it was essentially because she’s getting braces on Thursday and wanted photos taken before the big day.

Cheryl suggested she ride Warrior when we got there.  She explained that she hadn’t ridden him for almost a year because he keeps injuring his legs, but she thought that he would be fine. Elaine is so very good with calming horses down, that him being skittish wasn’t that much of a concern, but Elaine wanted to make sure because she wanted to ride him bareback.

We did the horse thing right at the end of the shoot, and Warrior was fine, perfect in fact.  He stood so nicely, and he looked like he really enjoyed being ridden around the paddock.

The best part for me, was after we’d finished taking photos, and Elaine climbed off him.  He went absolutely crazy.  He must have thoroughly enjoyed the ride and the attention.  He started bucking and shaking his head, and then he just started galloping around the paddocks.  Then all the other horses joined in, and they were racing up and down the paddock partitions.

And then it got even better! But I didn’t manage to get photos of this part, because my camera was already packed away (it was raining again).

Cheryl lives next to a game farm of sorts, and the paddocks border on the fence of it.   Earlier in the session, we noticed two zebras at the fence calling the horses, and they were all standing together.  Whenever we got closer (I didn’t have my zoom lens on me), the zebras ran off.  But then, with his commotion,  the two zebras came back to the fence to see what was going on… and they started running too!! They were copying everything the horses were doing.  It was so very special!!

4 weeks ago, my photohunt post was all about this horse. Sierra, as he’s now been named, is looking fantastic compared to a few weeks ago. These two people are riders at the school, and they’re helping Melody teach this horse to trust people again. They wouldn’t have been able to get this close to him a few weeks ago.

She aint heavy, she’s my Bonny.

It looks Abby’s trying to hold up Bonny’s head.

The ground was too wet for Bradley to ride today, so they learnt about grooming horses ears today. While the kids were busy, I took Connor for a walk to see the horses.

These horses were next to each other in the paddocks, waiting for their turns to get groomed. I was very lucky to see El Gitano (right) lean over the railing to give Malawi (left) a nuzzle.

They’re both still quite new at the stables. Malawi is a SPCA rescue. He’s been at the stables for just over 2 months, and is looking fantastic now.
El Gitano is a thoroughbred who was living in very bad conditions. He’d been without water for ages and was barely fed. He’s nearly 20 years old, and Melody doesn’t expect him to fully recover for another 2 years (he’s been at the stables for about 6 months). He was extremely under-nourished (which you can still see in the next photo), and had bad colic. He’s also allergic to maize, so he’s on a special diet.